The Faith of a Mustard Seed

The New Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lections Appointed for the Day

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Mulberry_Tree_by_Vincent_van_Gogh.jpg

It was a relief to spend most of Saturday unhooked from the news, too busy to consume think pieces about the new Archbishop of Canterbury. When I wasn’t shuffling piles of stuff around my atrium looking for my good pair of scissors, or trying to figure out how to make the copier get it’s wretched act together, I lettered stacks of cards for the Sunday School lesson I’m hoping to do over the next couple of Sundays.

Of course, then I had to come home, back to all the troubles of the world. Thus it was that I accidentally read this piece by Michael Bird in the late night hours:

Mullally is described as “a theological liberal” by the Financial Times, and is a confessed feminist, while also supporting the inclusion of those who reject women’s ordination. She has stated her commitment to being “very respectful of those who, for theological reasons, cannot accept my role as a priest or a bishop,” emphasizing that “Church diversity throughout London should flourish and grow.” She supports the Church of England’s current teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman for life, though she has advocated for inclusive pastoral care for LGBTQ+ individuals.

Crucially, Mullally led the Living in Love and Faith project for many years, a church-wide consultation exploring questions around marriage and sexuality. This work eventually led to the Prayers of Love and Faith, services of blessings for same-sex couples now available in Church of England parishes.

I had not connected the dots on this interesting tidbit. She was the one who lead the way into further rending the fabric of the Anglican Communion. The Prayers of Love and Faith were a subject of much concern for GAFCON 2023, if you remember. It was that effort to try to “bless” two people in a same-sex relationship without actually “blessing” the relationship. God, you see, is easily distracted, and isn’t clever enough to see the ruse. It’s that old business of attempting to have one’s cake and eat it too (sometime I need to look up the origin of that strange maxim), of spiritually waving a stick in the air like some half-price magician who can only get work at children’s birthday parties.

Michael Bird concludes his rather long piece this way:

I am delighted that we have the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, though I understand not everyone will be elated at the prospect of a woman ABC.

Look, at the end of the day, Mullally’s capacity to be a unifying figure will likely depend on her ability to listen, respect theological diversity, and navigate the tension between progressive Western provinces and conservative Global South churches. Her stated commitment to respecting those who disagree with her theologically, combined with her administrative competence and pastoral background, may provide resources for hope. But really, it’s a hope that the Church of England and the Anglican Communion will not fall apart and divide into two separate communions on her watch. The persistent problem will be her association with the Prayers of Love and Faith, which is so vague and vacuous, and represents a significant barrier to reconciliation with Church of England conservatives and the Global South.

The reality is that fractures in the Anglican Communion predate Mullally’s appointment. Whether she can serve as a force for unity or will preside over further fragmentation remains to be seen. Much will depend on whether she prioritizes institutional cohesion over progressive partisanship, and whether conservative Anglicans are willing to remain in communion with a female primate who is somewhat vague on same-sex blessings. Early indications suggest the path ahead will be difficult, requiring extraordinary grace, wisdom, and diplomatic skill to prevent further division in the global Anglican family.

Is it that we have all accepted that church clerics are, in essence, secular diplomats? People who go round the world saying things, hoping that far flung violent conflicts will simmer down to a reasonable level and that greater equity will be achieved between men and women in the workforce? The only difference is that the person saying whatever it is is wearing a robe and a giant hat for some reason.

What does “a force for unity” even mean? So called “conservative Anglicans” have already said they are not in communion with Canterbury not just because of Prayers of Love and Faith, but because when the American Church apostatized, Rowan Williams, and later Justin Welby did nothing but twiddle their thumbs and talk out of both sides of their mouths (would also like to know the origin of this linguistic curiosity).

Warm fuzzy hopes that Sarah Mullally might be a “force for unity” are predicated on God not being awake enough to notice that almost no one believes in him anymore. If God is a real Being with thoughts and opinions of his own, if he has the power to speak and to act, then it might be interesting to factor him in as at least one consideration. But it seems that his arcane ethical sensibilities, his strange way of communicating, his very outmoded thoughts about men and women make him entirely irrelevant.

Still, some of us “Conservative Anglicans” who haven’t been in communion with Canterbury for years and years will drag ourselves to our various churches this morning, because it is Sunday, the first day of the week, the usual time to contemplate the mighty acts of God. And there are lessons appointed for us to read, mark, and inwardly digest.

They begin with one of God’s prophets expressing his frustration that the wicked are allowed to go on as if he doesn’t care, as if he isn’t interested in the chaos and mayhem:

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.

But then, strangely enough, God has an answer that the prophet dutifully records:

“Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”

This is not the sort of answer the prophet or the people were hoping. They wanted God to promise to make all their enemies go away, to improve their economic condition, to make society slightly more moral again, and to appoint someone to run the National Healthcare more effectively. They didn’t want the Chaldeans to sweep through like an apocalypse. The prophet points this out and God answers again:

“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.

Faith. What is that even? Sarah Mullally and her compatriots in the Church of England took a lot of trouble to write those prayers of both love and faith. She seems like the sort who would describe herself as a “person of faith.” Anyone can be a person “of” faith, can admit that religion is very important for the overall well-being of people and that it’s good to pray sometimes. If you don’t sometimes pray—it doesn’t matter too much who to—you risk not living a full, flourishing, healthy life.

The trouble is, faith and even love without reference to the God who made everything is less than useless. It seems that the people Jesus chose to follow him, who would eventually be his apostles, carrying the news about him into every corner of the world (I wonder why we say the world has corners?) began, rather dimly, to understand that there was some great lack inside them, that the way they had always understood the world to be arranged was not quite correct. One day, seemingly out of the blue, like the prophet, frustrated and even disappointed, they said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

It was a strange thing to say, for none of the people wanted the mulberry tree to suddenly be flung into the sea. They wanted more relevant goods and services in keeping with the standard of living they preferred. They wanted Jesus to make things easier. Faith, in its increase, should have been a sort of force for unity. If you believe it, you can probably achieve it. Isn’t that what Jesus is saying?

By way of illustrating the great mystery of faith as small as a mustard seed, Jesus tells another little story:

“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Those who don’t really want to know the Master will pass by, unconcerned. Being commended by anyone, but especially other people, is the very thing they are so anxious to experience. They are so wrapped up in themselves and their own assumptions about the world that they have missed that God himself is in their midst, that he has prepared a table and offered himself as the very food they so desperately need.

For, to understand what Jesus thinks about anything, you first have to discover that you were nothing special, there was nothing worth commending about your faith. You have to look at the whole span of your life and see that the good things you did were required by a just and holy God and that the bad things are so numerous they would uproot you and fling you into the depths of the sea forever. You are, what’s that word? Oh yes, unworthy. You have not even done your duty. You deserve the Chaldeans and the apocalypse.

And this is a hard thing to face in our world, for we are continually being told that we are good enough, that faith in yourself is sufficient, that being happy is the preeminent virtue. But none of that is true because God is real and he does care and he is paying attention. There is not one spec of the cosmos that is outside of his concern. If you even barely turn toward him, if you even slightly bow your head and whisper, “help,” he plants you as tree beside living water, he not only gives you the crumbs under the table, but feeds you with his body and blood.

The Psalmist said it pretty well. “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” And you can act too. You can get up and go to church this morning. It is the best way to increase whatever small portion of faith you posses. Hope to see you there!